Live Rock Placement

[Blue Ram]

I am setting up my first salt tank over the weekend which is a 34 gal Red Sea Max cube. It has been recommended that I raise the live rock off the bottom of the tank to avoid creating any dead areas on the rock. I will be using 1/2 inch of live sand as a base. Is egg crate cut into pieces the best thing to use to set the rock on?? Just wondering because I don't have tools to cut egg crate. Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

[christyf5]

I've used scissors to cut egg crate, its a bit difficult but gets the job done. Best is a pair of those wire cutting type pliers though.

[Darth Wader]

Hey, If you want to raise your live rock and make some cool shapes and caves and stuff like that you can do what Albert recommended to me, and take small pipe maybe like 1/2" pipe and make a square frame out of it. So just use elbows and pipe and make the frame of a box. Then you can rest the rock on it or against it and you can make some great aquascaping doing it that way. With it being a smaller tank only 34 gal, you could make one frame out of pipe and line the rock with it so you cant see the pipe and it would create a nice cave and get the rock elevated. Hopefully that helps or gives you a different idea to work with.

[hillbillyreefer]

Egg Crate is easy to cut. Measure it up and just snap the flats out where you want the cut. A regular pair of pliers works fine for this. The only trouble is some flying plastic and the shards are a little sharp, stepped on one yesterday and said a bad word. Safety glasses should be worn and don't do it over carpet, the fliers stick to it and are hard to get off. There will be little jagged edges on the piece you want to keep, just run the side of the pliers up and down the edges and they pop right off.

HTH
Brad

[Borderjumper]

I use my hubbys side cutters. Put the flat edge against the side you want to keep and it makes a pretty clean cut. If I want to get really fancy I use a rasp type flat file and clean it up with that.

[Pescador]

Here's a pic of the PVC support. You still need something to cut it with, like a hacksaw or pipe cutter. I drilled holes in it so there are no dead spots and didn't worry about gluing it. It saves you on base rock, makes some great caves and gives good flow under the rock.

http://members.shaw.ca/btooms/IMG_1956.JPG